Don Gorvett is a Boston-born artist acclaimed for his hand-pulled color reduction woodcuts recording maritime subjects.
Don was born in Boston, MA, in 1949 and raised in Cambridge and Somerville, MA. He spent much of his youth at the seashore swimming, fishing, and observing the fishing-town industry. His family eventually moved to Burlington, MA, where high school art instructor Elinor Marvin discovered his talents. Mrs. Marvin privately tutored Don, and he received an extraordinary art education focused on drawing, graphic arts, and theatrical set design.
Don was awarded a Junior Ford Fellowship through the School at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, and graduated in 1972. The summer before starting his studies at the Museum School, he rented a cabin to concentrate on painting with the support and encouragement of Annabelle Lewis of Westport, CT, and Ogunquit, ME, and his teacher and mentor, Elinor Marvin.
After graduation, Mr. Gorvett moved his primary residence to Gloucester, MA, to continue to develop his work. His work gravitated to the large color reduction woodcut and away from painting. During his earlier years in Gloucester, MA, Don was an 'artist in residence' at Stillington Hall, a Jacobean-style estate belonging to Leslie and Mary Buswell and later to their son, Peter Buswell. Mrs. Buswell offered well-furnished dressing rooms in the estate's theater for Don to live. He set up his first etching press on the stage above his rooms and began a series of large-scale reduction woodcuts. At this time, Don also created a series of drypoint etchings recording the Gloucester waterfront. During his residence at Stillington Hall, he also organized and promoted public classical music concerts and private wedding events.
Today, Don's studio is at the historic Beacon Marine Basin, overlooking Gloucester Harbor. The working Marina is the last of its kind and offers Don a large space in which to work, exhibit woodcuts, and offer instruction and presstime. Yet most importantly, the harbor and surrounding area offer abundant subject matter.
The Don Gorvett Gallery in downtown Portsmouth, NH, is celebrating seventeen years of exhibiting and selling his work and that of other artists. Don Gorvett's woodcuts are in the permanent collections at public and private institutions such as the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, Andover, MA; Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA; Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA; Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockport, ME; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, UK; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA; Museum of Fine Art, Hanoi, Vietnam; National Geographic Library, Washington, DC; Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; Portsmouth Historical Society, Portsmouth, NH; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; and Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA.
